


Pride

by themus



Series: 7 Deadly Sins [7]
Category: The OC
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death, Gen, Heavy Angst, Murder, Running Away, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-20
Updated: 2008-05-20
Packaged: 2019-02-23 02:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13180671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themus/pseuds/themus
Summary: Seth never stopped Ryan from running away at the beginning of 102 The Model Home.





	Pride

**PRIDE:**

_a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority._

 

 

The kid is sitting on the grass when the truck's headlamps sweep across him, picking his shape out of the darkness.

Ethan Wilder pulls the Freightliner to a slow stop halfway into the turn, not caring that he's completely blocking the exit from the rest area – this tiny slot of gravel which juts from the I-35.  
  
It's February, but the air is stifling - caught in that pre-thunderstorm sultriness- and at a little past midnight no one is interested in stopping here. Not when Waco is only twenty minutes farther northbound.

Ethan can see in the filtered haze from the edge of the headlamps that the kid hasn't moved from his place, leaning against the trunk of a bare tree at the edge of the picnic spot. His head is down, staring at the ground between his feet, and he looks for all the world as if someone took him for a ride and then dumped him in the middle of nowhere like an unwanted puppy.

The truck window whirs and squeaks as it retracts into the door and Ethan leans out, his elbow catching against metal which feels frosty even though it's muggy enough now that he can smell the mellow, earthy scent of ozone and baking asphalt.

The weather is too changeable for some kid to be sitting out on a long, lonely stretch of highway with no shelter in sight.

“Hey there, kid. You want a ride somewhere?”

The kid's head comes up slightly and Ethan surmises that he's looking him over, although the boy's face is shadowed and invisible.

“Weather report said it might storm tonight. S'posed to be a bad one,” he warns.

He can feel the hard gaze level on his face before the kid stands hesitantly, head drooping down again now, and rounds the truck cab. The door swings open with a sharp tug and then the kid is clambering up onto the running board.

He stops there, catching Ethan with blue eyes piercing out of a thin, pale face.

Under the dim interior light, Ethan can see now that his hair has been shorn recently – cropped unevenly close around the skull. The unnatural spiky mess could be a golden blonde underneath all the dirt, but it's difficult to tell.

“I thought you guys couldn't take hitch-hikers?” the kid says, in a voice so low it's almost a whisper. There's a rough edge to it that could be caused by a sore throat or too much smoking, and even the hint of it sounds painful.

“I'm an owner-operator,” Ethan explains, “I figure if I own the truck, I should get to dictate who's allowed in it.”

The kid seems to accept that because he nods and climbs in, pulling the door shut after him with a hard yank of his shoulder.

“Where are you looking to go?” Ethan asks, waiting while the kid buckles his seatbelt. He notices that the clothes the boy is wearing are as dirty as the rest of him, and the cuffs of the sweatshirt are torn and unravelling. The smell of them - sharp and sweet from months of being slept in without washing - begins to fill the cab.

The kid settles himself back into the comfortable seat and shrugs a shoulder, staring resolutely away from Ethan. “Anywhere. It doesn't matter.”

He snorts to himself and closes his window again, beginning to really feel the sweat prickling on the palms of his hands, and turns the air-con up a notch. “Well then you're in luck; 'anywhere' is just on my way.” He revs the truck and restarts his interrupted manoeuvre – pulling out onto the freeway. The engine rumbles steadily as the heavy vehicle completes the wide arc, slashing bright light across the open fields which are packed close on either side.

Ethan flexes his fingers around the steering wheel, feeling the engine's familiar vibration running through it, shaking the the leather necklace which hangs from the rearview mirror. The little bone surfboard bounces back and forth on the cord as if riding impalpablewaves.

Surfing is a hobby he picked up back when spending all his time on the road was voluntary and filled with adventure. Now he just drives back and forth on the same old routes and his muscles are slowly beginning to turn to fat.

But maybe that's his age.

Ethan reaches over and flicks the surfboard with his forefinger. Maybe if he makes good time tonight - gets to Arkansas well before dawn - he can be in North Carolina with a few hours to spare on his schedule. And then he just has to hope for head-high swells at Wrightsville Beach.

It isn't unheard of at this time of year.

“Mind if I smoke?”

He glances over at the kid, noting that his eyes shift away slightly at the contact, looking down instead on the battered pack of cigarettes in his hand.

“Sure, as long as I get one, too,” Ethan says, shrugging again. He turns his focus back onto the road in front of him, white lines blinking past on either side - two long ropes of white skipping through his vision. He hears the click of the lighter and looks back just in time to accept the cigarette the boy now offers him. The lit end flares bright orange in the stream of cold air from the jets – a sudden spark of warm colour against the alien green of the console lights.

The smoke is bitter when he tastes it, lips wrapped around the cheap paper, but Ethan pulls it deep into his lungs with satisfaction. “My wife's been on at me for years to quit these,” he says, gesturing with the cigarette, eyes fixed on the road. “She doesn't seem to understand that these are my only friends twelve days out of fourteen.”

He takes another drag. “But I guess you know what I mean.”

The kid is silent, but Ethan doesn't really expect a response – not from this one. Most of the kids he has picked up have been this way; reticent. Except for the redhead, he remembers, who was chatty as hell – practically boasting about the worry he was causing his parents by taking off. So much so that Ethan stopped early to drop him off, unable to listen any longer.

The next time he looks over the boy is almost down to the filter on his own cigarette, the packet long since hidden away again in the baggy green cargo pants he is wearing. From the way they hang oddly from his hips it's obvious they are hand-me-downs, taken from a Goodwill or given by someone who is much larger around the waist and longer in the legs than this kid could ever be, even if he were on a proper diet.

He wonders if the kid has people worrying about him, the way Ethan would worry about his daughter if she were on the streets.

He wonders if anyone has noticed he's gone at all, or if he slipped invisibly into the night like too many of the others Ethan has passed along his way - the redhead being the onerous exception to that.

Ethan scratches at his wrist with sweaty fingers, keeping the near-dead cigarette carefully aloft of his shirt. He should have changed it during his stop, but he didn't figure on it getting so much hotter in such a short time. Above the clouds are boiling black and the lights from the city bounce back from them, creating a shroud of purple-grey which hangs in the sky.

He sighs and watches the road, resigning himself to a long, quiet trip.

He's pastMount Pleasant before the exhaustion starts really getting to him – the two hour nap on the thin sleeper mattress losing its effect even before the sprawling neon mass of Forth Worth faded behind them on the horizon. By now the fields have turned to heavy woods and the press of trees keeps the hot air packed across the surface of the road.

It's intense now, that stickiness along the back of his shoulders and the palms of his hands, and each time Ethan blinks away the stinging wetness from his eyes the white lines on the road jump and twist, shifting position from left to right and back again, unsteady.

“I think it's time for a break,” he says, speaking out loud from habit rather than from any real expectation of response.

The kid has barely said a full sentence in the last four hours, content to sit and stare blindly out of his window at the passing dark.

At the noise though he shifts in his seat, letting out a tired breath through his nose and yawning – eyes and jaw squeezing tight shut against the spasm.

“Looks like you could do with some rest too,” Ethan comments. He swings the truck into a small pullout along the side of the highway. It's empty just like the rest of the road – nothing but blackness in both directions. “Should be on the road again in a half-hour or so,” he says as he kills the engine, pushing himself out of his seat with groaning muscles, and clambering through to the sleeper compartment at the back of the cab.

He doesn't bother waiting for a response which won't come, but simply lowers himself onto the bed with relish and lets his eyes drift shut.

He blinks awake some time later - his body clock says about forty-five minutes - to the sound of soft snoring. Ethan swings himself up into a sitting position, grimacing when his back sticks to the sheets, and pulls a can of iced coffee out of the mini-fridge.

The bright light is startling and he sits still as the spots dance on his retinas – the can pressed to his flushed forehead.

Beautiful.

By the time he's finished the coffee the gunk has gone from his eyes and his vision is sharp again – the tired blurriness gradually eroded from the edges.

The black outside is just beginning to shift into dark grey with the first vestiges of twilight. It must be coming up to five o'clock. Which means that he really needs to get a move on if he wants to be in the next state before the sun comes up.

The kid is still snoring – passed out in his seat in the exact position Ethan left him in; head down and to one side, resting on his hand, his elbow pressed against the glass. His window is slightly down and Ethan's surfboard necklace is shaking in the breeze which is funnelled through the gap, ruffling at the kid's gritty hair  
Ethan reaches over and pulls the leather cord from the rearview mirror, turns the bone ornament over in his hand a few times. It slides easily against his sweaty flesh.

He puts it in his pocket and stands there, perfectly still. Thinking.

It's a wonder the kid is asleep. It's too vulnerable a position and most of the hitchers Ethan gives rides to don't sleep a wink even on the all-night drives. But the redhead did. And this one has, which must mean that he's truly exhausted - with an exhaustion beyond anything Ethan can possibly comprehend.

And he almost doesn't want to wake him up.

Almost. 

But it's time to drop him off, and this really can't go on any longer.

It's time.

He's surprised how well his hand fits around the boy's neck – the muscles pliant, moulding under his fingers as if they were made to fit together, two interlocking pieces of a puzzle.

The others felt that way too, except for the redhead whose neck was thick, caked inside with the fat of hamburgers and fifty-cent candy bars. It felt ugly, and Ethan didn't enjoy that one.

But now he can feel the kid's pulse thundering beneath his fingertips, beating out a frantic tattoo of alarm as his eyes flick shocked out of sleep and Ethan feels himself grow hotter at the fleeting glimpse of abject terror which flashes across the blue.

Then he kicks out, driving a foot pointlessly at the cab's central column, grabbing at Ethan's hand with thin fingers. He scratches at his own throat in desperation as he seeks leverage, drawing blood. It's bright red against his pale skin, like a trail of rubies on white cloth.

And Ethan wants to taste it.

But the kid gets a tight grip on his thumb and wrenches. Ethan lets go, pulling his hand out of reach and the boy launches himself out of his seat and throws himself at the door, shoving it wide with his shoulder as he tugs at the latch - practically falling out of the truck to land awkwardly sprawling on one hand and knee. 

Then he's up, and Ethan can hear him running, although he can't see him – blinded by the light in the cab. He spins, throwing open his own door and following him out into the night.

It's frustrating, that they never seem to appreciate it.

Outside it's hard to draw breath in the sweltering heat. And he has to blink, standing still for a long moment before his eyes adjust, catching sight of the slight shadow jumping over the median guardrail.

He starts after it, feeling the disused muscles in his thighs straining after so many hours sitting in a truck, but he's over the median and halfway across the empty westbound lanes as the shadow disappears into the thick woods at the edge of the freeway. A few more seconds and he hits the bank, stumbles down the incline and smashes through the first line of trees.

Branches tear at him, whipping him in the face and arms and he can feel the sharp sting of torn flesh even as he pushes through and keeps running. It's even darker in the woods, but he can hear the kid, can hear the crunching of leaves and twigs away to his right.

He isn't so stupid after all – he's following the line of the freeway, smart enough even in the middle of flight not to run blindly into unfamiliar woods.

Sweat is running down Ethan's spine, spilling down his face and into his eyes, stinging like acid, and he wipes an arm across his face as he runs, stumbling over invisible terrain.

He can hear the boy's breath now – still harsh and choked, gritting at the edge of each gasped breath as if the lungs are sandpaper, and it almost drowns out everything else.

Then the boy trips, ankle twisting in a sudden unseen dip and he goes down hard on his hands and knees. He twists at the last moment and rolls onto his back as Ethan drops down on top of him. His face is smudged with earth and leaves, eyes blinking out grey at the world in the still light beneath the trees.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Ethan spits out, smacking the boy across the mouth.

He doesn't like to get angry, but Ethan can see that he doesn't understand. They never understand.

He's trying to help them.

He hits the kid again, feeling a lip split against teeth under his palm and the blood drips brown over the boy's chin, smears over Ethan's hand and the button of his sleeve.

The boy doesn't answer. He's still struggling for breath, mouth gaping in an attempt to get as much oxygen as possible. Then he bucks, almost knocking Ethan off him with the force, and he swings his arm up so hard that his shoulder cracks, landing a heavy punch to Ethan's side.

When he pulls his hand back there is blood running thick down the side of his palm, the switchblade that is clutched awkwardly in his fist half-closed on his own hand and the outer edge of the blade shiny with black viscosity.

The cut doesn't hurt yet, but Ethan knows that it will, shallow even as it seems to be. He swipes out; angry, incensed, knocking the knife out of the kid's hand.

It slides just out of reach, wedged under the low branch of some thorny shrub.

And suddenly Ethan can feel the pressure in his side, the blood bubbling out from under his arm where he has been cut.

The kid actually tried to  _stab_  him. Ethan grits his teeth, feeling nothing but the rage boiling in his chest and he can see that redhead again; that irritating redhead who screamed and fought and bit.

And how dare he? He should be grateful.

They're never fucking grateful. They don't appreciate what he's doing for them.

His ears are ringing, filled with echoing thuds and heaving breaths, the liquid pat of flesh hitting bloody flesh.

His hand is numb by the time he regains control, and the boy's face is unrecognisable under the blood, except for those blue eyes showing grey, the pupils huge with adrenaline now and glossy with pain.

“I'm just trying to help you,” Ethan says, sitting back to take breath, flexing his fingers until the nerves prickle.

He can't tell the difference between sweat and blood now, but his hands slip with fluid and he wipes them on his jeans until he can feel the roughness of the material scratching at his skin.

And the kid just lies there, sucking in tremulous breaths, barely aware.

He's a china doll with a scarlet face, his whole body pliable, with no energy left to fight back.

Ethan's ears begin to clear, anger bubbling away, and soon he can hear an engine idling nearby. He frowns, looking towards the freeway. The bank obstructs any view, but he can see the halo of a car's headlamps as it sits there, barely twenty feet away. Practically close enough to touch.

“Can we hurry this up?” a voice says – the soft timbre of it carrying the short distance to where Ethan sits, knees digging into soft soil, straddling the boy's hips.

His sweatshirt has ridden up in the struggle and his side is showing; a chunk of pale flesh in the darkness, speckled with black. He sucks in a sudden sharp breath at the sound of voices, chest heaving up and outwards, swallowing at the blood and teeth in his mouth. He croaks a small noise, malformed lips trying to form words but failing.

“Shh,” Ethan whispers.

He pulls the leather necklace from his pocket, wrapping an end around each hand, and the boy blinks at him, confused.

He doesn't understand until Ethan twists the cord around his throat, crossing the ends over the trachea with a sharp tug and pushing his hands to the ground either side of the boy's neck all in one rapid, practised movement. He pulls until the cord cuts in so hard that the meagre flesh almost folds back over it, hiding it from sight.

Then the kid's eyes go wide, awareness sparkling in them again. His hands come up to scrabble against the cord. There is dirt caked underneath the fingernails, dirt matted in the clotting blood on the side of his knife hand. And he hits out, clawing at Ethan's arms in desperation, but Ethan just pushes down harder. The cord scrapes the skin from his fingers and the side of his wrists.

“Shh,” he whispers again, “just relax, it'll be okay. Just relax and let me help you.”

But the boy struggles and gapes like a landed fish, feet scraping against earth and kicking against shrubs, which rustle crisply as the light in his eyes narrows and dims.

Ethan can see the fear behind it, shining out darkly like lust as he realises. Realises that he's choking and dying.

He would plead if he could, Ethan knows.

“What was that noise?”

Ethan risks a look over at the car and there's a shadow burnt into the headlamp's glare now; someone standing at the top of the bank, looking down.

Looking right at them.

As Ethan holds every muscle tense and still.

As the boy fights for air, eyes glazing.

“Around here?” comes an answering voice, “It'll be coyotes, or bears, looking for a nice snack. So hurry up and hand me that jack, would you?”

There is a long moment of silence. Ethan can hear his own heartbeat, can feel the rasping struggle in the boy's lungs underneath him. And then the silhouette turns and walks away, flitting out of view in a moment.

The boy jerks under him, an electric twitch, and then stills.

Stops fighting.

In his eyes the light darkens and flickers out.

And with that, the kid is gone.

 

 


End file.
